Jeanne Braida Grumme, 1940-2024

Jeanne was born in La Louviere, Belgium of an Italian father and Belgian mother. In 1940, as Hitler moved through Belgium into France, her father packed up the family and moved to Venice, Italy.

While in Venice, shortly after the war, she met Joseph O. White, an Army Air Corp soldier who managed the R&R facility on the Lido. He proposed and given the choice of returning to war ravaged Belgium or coming to America, she made the correct choice. They settled in his hometown of Terre Haute, IN.

Sons David and Marc were born in 1947 and 1948.

Tragically, Joe was killed in an accident in 1952 and Jeanne raised the two boys with the help of their paternal grandmother, Lillian White.

In 1958 she married Jerry Russell of Terre Haute but sadly he passed away from cancer in 1965.

In 1968 she married Fred Grumme of Indianapolis and they enjoyed 38 wonderful years together. She introduced Fred to the joys of traveling the world with friends and with the People-to-People organization. She claims they have visited Florence, Italy on 26 separate occasions.

Fred has five children, three of whom survived: Jay (Sandy) Grumme, Tom (Susie) Grumme, Don (Judy) Grumme and the late Jane Russell and Ray (Barb) Grumme. Blending seven siblings all between the ages of 16 and 22 was no small task, but all are proud to say there has never been a family quarrel or one sibling not on speaking terms with another. All were blessed with their marriage.

Jay likes to brag that between he and Jeanne, they have seven holes-in-one together. Jeanne had seven, Jay zero.

The family would like to thank her kind caregivers Vera Baxter, Dianna Horne, Corrine Hampton, and Shab Pitamber for their gracious care in her final years and the Indiana Concierge Health Hospice for her final days.